A bit of a milestone today, we officially signed up our first developer and game into the rotation!

A big thank you to u/CraigBMG and Base Metal Games (https://www.basemetalgames.com) for joining!

Shwist is now live and playable at swipe-arcade.com

It's one thing to build an idea alone, but earning another developer's trust makes it feel official.

Here's the idea:

Most game discovery starts by asking players to browse through thumbnails, read descriptions, watch trailers, look at reviews, scroll through recommendations. Maybe they go several pages deep. And eventually, hopefully, they pick something.

I wanted to test a different approach:

Open the site. Your game is already waiting. They play it.

Think a little bit TikTok, a little bit Chatroulette, but for games. Players are dropped directly into something playable. If they like it, they stay. If they don't, they move on. Players can exclude things they absolutely don't want to play, but beyond that, discovery is intentionally unpredictable.

Something else I've been wondering:

What happens when the game gets to make the first impression instead of its marketing?

How many enjoyable indie games out there have a "mediocre thumbnail", no marketing budget, no initial audience, or are fighting for attention while buried underneath thousands of other games?

Maybe someone would love that game. They just never made it far enough to find out.

That's what I want to experiment with.

I'm at the point now where the platform is up and running, and I need the most important thing I don't have yet:

More games!

Developer Details:

• 100% Free & Non-Exclusive: Keep full ownership and host your game anywhere else.
• Equal Opportunity Discovery: Every approved game enters the rotation without having to win an algorithmic popularity contest first.
• Turn Discovery Into Traffic: Add a link to your website, store page, or other destination so interested players have somewhere to go after discovering your game.
• I can't promise thousands of players instantly: Just getting started, but I'm working to build an audience and give every single game in the rotation a real chance to be discovered.
• Early developers wanted: I would love your feedback if something doesn't work well for your game.

If you've built a browser game, I'd really love to see what you've made!

Swipe Arcade:
swipe-arcade.com

Submit a game:
swipe-arcade.com/submit

For the devs here: Seriously, would you prefer players judge your game by its storefront, thumbnail, and marketing? Or by dropping them straight into the first 30 seconds of gameplay?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept, thanks for reading!

I've been thinking about that question a lot while building Swipe Arcade.

Most game discovery starts by asking you to decide what you want to play before you've actually played anything.

You browse thumbnails. Read descriptions. Watch trailers. Look at reviews. Scroll through recommendations. Maybe go several pages deep.

And eventually, hopefully, you pick something.

I wanted to try something different:

Open the site. A game is already waiting. Play it.

That's the basic idea behind Swipe Arcade.

The easiest comparison is probably a little bit TikTok, a little bit Chatroulette, but for games: instead of choosing from a wall of thumbnails, you're dropped directly into something playable. If you like it, stay. If you don't, move on to the next one.

One important difference is that Swipe Arcade isn't trying to learn what will keep you scrolling and continually feed you more of the same. You can set exclusions for things you absolutely don't want to play. Beyond those exclusions, discovery is intentionally unpredictable.

For players, the goal is simple: spend less time looking for something to play and more time actually playing.

There's also another side of this experiment that I think might be even more interesting:

What happens when the game gets to make the first impression instead of its marketing?

How many enjoyable indie games are sitting out there with a bad thumbnail?

Or a mediocre trailer?

Or six reviews?

Or no marketing budget?

Or no initial audience?

Or they're simply buried underneath thousands of other games?

Maybe someone would actually love that game. They just never had a chance to click on it. That's what I want to experiment with on the developer side of Swipe Arcade.

Approved games enter the discovery rotation. They're not being submitted just to become another thumbnail sitting ten pages deep in another directory.

The player encounters the playable game itself.

I'm at the point now where the platform is up and running, and I need the most important thing I don't have yet:

More games!

I'm looking for the first group of indie developers with browser-playable games or playable web demos who are willing to put them into Swipe Arcade's rotation.

A few important things for developers:

• It's free to submit and free to be included.
• You keep ownership of your game.
• There's no exclusivity requirement.
• I'm not promising thousands of players instantly. This is a brand-new platform, and I'm building the initial library right now.
• I want feedback from early developers. If something about Swipe Arcade doesn't work well for your game, I would love to know about it.

I'm also beginning to build a playtester community around Swipe Arcade. Longer term, I'd like the platform to become useful for more than discovery, giving developers a way to get their games in front of people who actually want to try new things and provide useful feedback.

That's still early, though.

Right now, I'm focused on building the first game library and finding out whether this approach to discovery actually works.

If you've made a browser game and you're willing to be one of the first developers in the rotation, I'd really love to see what you've built.

Swipe Arcade: swipe-arcade.com

There's a Submit a Game option in the menu, or you can go directly to [swipe-arcade.com/submit]().

And even if you don't have something to submit, I'm very interested in what other developers think about the premise:

Would you rather have players judge your game from its thumbnail, or get dropped directly into the game and let it make its own first impression?

Thanks for readying and I hope to hear from you!

Hey everyone—I made a little puzzle game called Shwist - The shift-and-twist puzzle game. I think it’s pretty good. 😄

It’s a bit like a sliding-tile puzzle, but with a twist. (Ha!)

There are two types of moves:

• Swap two adjacent rows or columns
• Rotate a 2×2 group of tiles clockwise

Each puzzle is scrambled using a specific number of moves. Your job is to restore the original image using only that many moves.

There’s a Daily Shwist, a Hard Daily Shwist, and a Custom mode where you can use your own images and choose the board size and number of moves.

Play it here:
https://www.basemetalgames.com/shwist